Preservation efforts net 'hometown award' for Park Ridge

The Kalo Foundation was awarded the Governor's Hometown Award for its work preserving the Lannelli home and studio in Park Ridge, shown here. (Jennifer Delgado, Chicago Tribune file photo)

In 2011, the volunteer Kalo Foundation led the charge to preserve a piece of Park Ridge's history and at the same time it made history, winning the city its most recent Governor's Hometown Award.

The award from 2012 was presented recently to those who rallied to save the Iannelli Home and Studio, 255 N. Northwest Hwy., from the wrecking ball. That mission was accomplished in July 2011, when the foundation bought the property after a community-wide fundraising effort.

Restoration work at the renamed Iannelli Studios Heritage Center continues.

The Iannelli center was once a home and art studio to sculptor and designer Alfonso Iannelli, whose works range from the lobbies of Park Ridge's Pickwick Theater and Barrington's Catlow Theater to creating the "sprites" that adorned Frank Lloyd Wright's long-gone Midway Garden, to designing the etched "Rock of Gibraltar" on downtown Chicago's Prudential Building.

Also, anyone who grew up with Sunbeam's "T9" toaster or "C-20 Coffeemaster" could thank Iannelli . Those were two of his most famous industrial product designs.

By 2011, his home and studio had been named one of the 10 most historically endangered sites in the state and was the center of controversy after a developer proposed rezoning the area and replacing it with a quartet of townhomes.

The 20-year-old Governor's Hometown Awards program, currently administered by the Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, honors efforts that benefit this and future generations.

The award sign will be posted along a major street at an entrance to Park Ridge, city officials said.